by Scott, Eliot
Half the football team at least, it looks like, and those girls who spiked the punch as well. Is that why they looked me up and down like that, to come out here and help this girl criticize my dress? I note that they don’t have just a little vodka, they have a whole bottle of vodka that’s so big it’s got a handle fused into it making it look like a glass gallon of milk. Keeping my back to the mean girls, I turn to Grady, who’s smiling at me oddly. “Where’s Alex?” I demand, and scan past the laughing faces. I search for Alex lying somewhere out here on the ground.
“Grady?”
My heart begins thumping.
I spin and push at the girl who seems to be trying to grab my dress once more. My eyes roam the space around me and land on Grady again, pleading for help, hoping he will take up with this crazy girl. I wait for him to defend my honor.
He isn’t Alex.
It takes a few seconds for me to realize that he’s not going to. He’s not going to stand up for me at all, because this girl—these girls—and the guys who are out here with them, are all moving in closer to me, as though they’re all about to rip at my dress until it’s gone. They’d planned to do this, and Grady’s in charge.
“I can’t believe you fell for that shit. Alex is fine.” Grady pulls a big swig off the vodka bottle as it comes around. He holds the bottle out to me while he runs the sleeve of his coat over his mouth.
“Come on; we’re just joking around. Have a drink with us. Alex wanted me to get you out here. He and I think that dance is lame. We all just want to have a little party. Be entertained, maybe by you? What do you say?”
“What?” My eyes dart around, like prey caught in the cites of a dozen rifles, but my hand reaches nervously for the bottle, because I think I should play along until I can get away from these jerks. “Why would you let that girl tear my dress?”
“Why not? Ooops!” Grady reaches out and tears my dress more, yanking another swath from the skirt, then he flings some of the vodka at me, laughing as he shouts. “She smells like a liquor store!”
I run my hand along my damp cheek and watch as the vodka soaks into my dress. My face ticks with humiliation and the threat of tears. I won’t cry, though. I won’t. Not here—not in front of these people.
Where is Alex?
The taunts start to come hard and fast, blurred by the drumbeat of my pulse in my ears.
Some brunette girl calls out, “What does Alex see in her? Her legs are so scrawny and scratched up. Is that a giant skinned knee under a BandAid? What are you, six years old?”
“Alex says she likes to play in the mud with him,” Grady says, yanking then snapping the thin strap of my dress off one shoulder. I start to get afraid—really afraid. “Do you like to play…dirty, dirty games with my little brother? Or do you just play in the dirt.”
“What? No!” He tears the other strap off. “Grady. Stop!”
Horrified, and feeling sick, I hold my bodice up with both hands, and I try to run but the crowd presses in more. Two of Grady’s football friends have grabbed my shoulders and hold me fast.
“She’s so trashy. Alex was supposed to be my homecoming date.” The blonde girl comes to take the vodka bottle out of Grady’s hands and drinks a big swig of it, coughing some, and handing it off to one of the other leering football players, before saying, “And oh my God, her shoes look like sandals a little girl would wear—and all of that glitter. Maybe Alex is a pedo.”
“They aren’t. They’re new…we bought them today!”
She laughs through my pathetic defense, and that twinge hits my eyes again.
“Blue light special at the dollar store?” the girl adds.
I jerk my foot and try to kick out when I feel her tug at the strap along my ankle as though she’s trying to break it, all while I’m trying to simultaneously squirm out of these football guys’ grip. “Let me go, or I’m going to scream!”
Grady calls out, “Cover her damn mouth with your hand, idiot.”
A meaty hand clamps over the lower half of my face, and I struggle against it, twisting and jerking my head violently. The force of the hand grows harder.
“You made her dress uneven when you tore it, Grady. You too, Brooke. Poor little thing.” The blonde girl approaches again. “Here, let me fix you.”
I feel my skirt jerk the opposite direction, and more material rips off of me.
I fight and kick as they all approach, and I hear Grady calling out, “Damn, but she’s hot as fuck under this dress. I’ve never gotten a hard on from granny panties before, but, Jojo, every time you kick your leg high, I’m so ready to fuck you. And just when I didn’t think you did anything for me at all.” His laughter turns more wicked, making the guys holding me too tight also laugh nervously.
The girl—the blonde, drunk one—wrinkles her nose and looks away from me to the big trashcans and says, “It would be appropriate, trash next to trash, but I wouldn’t. You could pick up a lot of bacteria from the trash…just saying.”
I realize that they’ve torn half of my skirt away, all the way to my skin. My bodice is in tatters, and someone’s meaty hands are going after the strapless bra I borrowed from my mom. The smell of alcohol is thick. “Let’s see what else she’s got to offer before we decide.”
I whip my head around. It’s Grady. Grady’s tearing at my bra! I get my mouth free, biting at the hand on my face. “No. Stop it. Stop!”
My arms shiver, and my vision grows glossy, and I swear to God I’ve looked up and seen our school’s principal standing by the back door just looking out the square glass. I swear he’s just watching what’s happening to me, watching and not intervening. These people—they get away with murder. “Help me. Help!” I call out, but when I look up again his face is gone. Maybe I just imagined it.
One of the football guys starts running his hand around the front of where they’ve torn my dress, like he’s going to grab my chest, but before he does, Grady steps up and slaps his hand away, hard.
“Dude. What the fuck? That tit is a Sinclair tit. It belongs to my family. You get to watch. That’s it! Watch and learn—never, ever touch.” Grady sneers at me, his own eyes hot and fixed on my chest. His whiskey breath lands on my ear, and he’s panting like some sort of animal.
“You little whore. Now you’re going to put out for me, just like you do for my brother.”
“What the fuck, Grady!”
It’s Alex. He’s here.
“What the fuck!” I recognize Alex’s voice; he’s shouting.
I bite the hand that’s over my mouth again, hard. The guy barks while stuff—trash cans, plastic food buckets, some metal milk crates, and even a big metal dolly—starts flying in every direction. Everyone scatters—some of them screaming because random objects hit them—and suddenly the principal who I thought was watching me is actually here. He’s shouting along with Alex—he’s on my side. “What are you young people doing out here? Drinking?”
I eye the scratches and bruises the stupid football players left on my arms as I drop to my knees to pick up the largest part of my skirt that was torn off and get it tied around my chest like a funny halter to keep my dress in place now that there are no straps.
Alex looks like a madman, as crazy as Grady did a few moments ago. He right hooks his brother hard on the chin. It’s a blow that sends him to the ground.
“You don’t ever fucking touch her again. What’s wrong with all of you? Who tore her dress? Jojo, you tell me who tore your dress?” Alex paces around me like a lion protecting a kill. Nearly everyone has bailed, but he’s desperate to sink his teeth into someone.
And that’s how I feel. Killed. Dead.
Like I want to die…so I don’t answer him, I only breathe in and out, and try not to bawl.
Alex kicks Grady in the leg and lunges in to hit him again, but the principal stops Alex before he lands another huge punch.
“Everyone better clear the hell out of here and get back to the dance,” our principal shouts. “Alex, you get this gi
rl home. And Jojo, I’ll be calling your parents to tell them what you were up to out here. You reek of alcohol. All of you, if you don’t want the same phone calls to your houses, get out.”
The small crowd around us has gone silent, and then like it never happened, everyone but me and Alex has gone. Even the principal has gone.
The only one who looks back at me is the blonde girl; she’s grinning at me like this was the best fun she’s had in years. I glare at her until she has to look away, but once she does, I start sobbing.
“Jojo, Jesus Christ I’m so sorry!” Alex has me wrapped up in his arms, and he’s shaking so hard. He’s crying, and I’m crying, and we’re both checking each other over to make sure we’re both all right. “I’ll kill Grady. Just say so, and I’ll do it.”
I don’t answer that. Instead, I tell him how I got out here. “Grady told me you were hurt. They told me you needed my help. When I got out here I was looking for you, but they all just…like…attacked me. They laughed at me.” I start sobbing again.
In seconds, I’m wrapped up in Alex’s suit jacket, and he’s guiding me through a gate at the back of the school. “I was looking for you. Grady said you were in the ladies room. Fucker said that you were sick after he lured me out in the first place for some fake friend in trouble. There were two football seniors holding me hostage in the bathroom. They said it was all just a big prank going on and that they had to keep me there for exactly ten minutes. At minute five, I slammed one of them into the tile wall, head first. The other one ran when he saw the look in my eyes, and all of the blood coming out of his friend’s head.”
“He…your brother tricked us. Why would Grady do this?” I work to get my tears to stop, gulping air.
“He’s jealous. I told you, he’s not to be trusted. My family, it’s not normal.” Alex gasps out, trying to get control of his own emotions. “He won’t touch you again. I promise. I’m going to tell my father tonight. I’m going to get Grady punished for this. It goes against the Sinclair code of honor. You’ll see. He will suffer for this. I’m sorry, Jojo. I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Alex.” I say to him.
Because it wasn’t his fault.
Never his fault.
23.
Alex, Present Day.
My father’s face, and so many of my father’s words about Jojo, tumble forward, punching and slamming into my temples as I lie in my bed, holding the now sleeping girl who I will never stop trying to save.
It’s not often that I attempt to recall the words and the day everything changed. That’s when my own utter betrayal happened. But with Jojo’s discovery of her mother’s letter—the document that sealed her fate as much as my birth sealed mine—and with her tears freshly dried on her cheeks, the comparison of her family’s betrayals compared to mine are just as devastating.
The only difference? Her parents were good. They betrayed Jojo to keep her safe. Betrayed her out of a deep and endless well of love for her.
My father betrayed me, and Grady, over and over again because of sheer self interest. We were never children of parents in that traditional sense. In Father’s mind, we were only his possessions, chess pieces toyed with all out of boredom and hate, not because he hated us per-se, but because hate is just who and what my father was.
I was an idealistic and introverted child when Father rekindled the feud. I was a kid who read too many good books about what life and love and family should look like. Reality snuck up on me, slithered in and wound itself into each and every day without my knowledge, so when I was finally informed of my duties, I had no escape.
In retrospect, my mother should be forgiven for never standing up for us. I haven’t been successful in granting her forgiveness, though, because can you both forgive and hate someone at the same time? I can’t seem to find the answer to that question.
My mother always turned a blind eye to everything that went down with Father. Telling myself that she was helpless to fight it, like me and Grady, helps me get through interactions with her. She was a puppet too, doing exactly what Father told her to and trying to survive. I used to scream at her. I’d cry and beg her to do something, say shit like “be our real mother—help us somehow. Save us from him!”
I know now that my requests and my expectations were too huge. My mother…she’d been with my father since she was barely eighteen. She was too entrenched.
Once it was all over, and the pain of Jojo’s parting had lessened, I looked at her with different eyes. I figured she was pretty idealistic like me once. She probably had her own hopes and dreams. Before those big brown eyes of hers that look nearly exactly like mine went flat and dead—before she was called Wife and Mother— she must have had ideas about what her life would look like. Father must have fucked them up, too. I’m sure the things he did to her were as unspeakable and as unthinkable as what we went through.
Mother and I never reconciled, nor have we spoken a word about Jojo since. We don’t get along, but we are civil. It’s a business relationship, and it’s difficult for me, because when I try to connect to her, or try to imagine what goes on inside her frozen and unfeeling head, I nearly go insane remembering her abandonment of her own children.
Thinking about it now with Jojo here at my side, her ribs stretching and retracting to make room for each breath, drives me deeper into memories I’ll never fully bury.
I’ll never forget the day I told Father I had a girlfriend named Jojo Wallace.
“You hooked her, son. Hooked her just how I knew you would once I set you loose out there up at that lake. You don’t know it, but you’ve made me proud with this one. Mother-fucking Sinclair proud, son.”
I’d thought Father’s admiration was because he was proud I had the prettiest girlfriend in town, not because of anything else. I’d shown him a couple of photos of Jojo from my phone, took his praise and his happiness, and I left with it, never once suspecting.
It wasn’t until sophomore year when I got the full picture. I missed the signs completely, didn’t understand the cracks and the looks about Jojo that Father and Grady used to trade with each other. I didn’t understand my mother’s silent, watchful stares, or why at dinner they were so interested in my daily life, when before high school had started, no one had ever asked me a single thing that was going on inside my head. As long as I showed up showered and wearing the outfit the maids laid out for me to wear to dinner, not one of them had ever cared.
It all came to a head the night after the sophomore homecoming dance. I spent hours stewing in my fury after Jojo’s attack. I wanted Grady to be punished for what he’d done. I wanted absolute justice for me, because I’d thought there should be some sort of code between brothers and that code had surely been violated. I wanted to vindicate Jojo, make things hurt for my brother—make those scales even, despite how impossible that would be after what she went through.
But I was still smaller than Grady was back then. I was intimidated by him, so I’d wanted to enlist Father’s help to punish my brother. I waited until Grady was stuck at football practice. He’d been benched, and was only going to football practice because Father told him that he had to support his team. Grady had suffered a season-ending shoulder injury—one Father told us he’d gotten from falling down some stairs. I remember thinking it was probably a lie. I had this idea that Grady had either been in a fight or maybe a car accident and Father didn’t want anyone to know the truth. I had been really smug about that injury, thinking it was all Grady’s Karma stacking up against him. It was easy to assume the universe had noticed Grady was an asshole and finally paid him back.
I was so clueless back then. I didn’t understand that Father had broken Grady’s shoulder. He did it with a crowbar, as the story finally came out. That was after I told my father to go straight to hell when he told me he wanted me to help him hurt the Wallaces.
“Do you want me to take a fucking crowbar to your head, boy?” Father screamed in my face. “That’s what I’ll do to you
if you fuck up this plan. Damn your ungrateful ass—always like your mother, you are, thinking you’ve got a voice.”
Father stepped closer, shoving his nose into my face, and made his voice deadly calm. “Grady defied me once. Boy thought football was more important than family. See…Sinclair family duty and my plans for my family and my boys never included anyone wasting time playing fucking college ball at some second-rate school. That boy went behind my back and filled out applications. He talked to recruiters and got some sort of bullshit scholarship without telling me. He thought I’d be proud to save the family some money.” Father laughed, stepping away from me. “As if our fucking family needs to save money. He humiliated me, and when is a Sinclair proud about someone going behind their back? When, Alex—you tell me…when?”
Father had flipped back to shouting, his eyes bugging out, spittle flying off of his lips. “When, Alex?”
“Never, Sir,” I answered, feeling like I suddenly must be asleep, that this whole thing was a nightmare and I needed to wake up.
“I had to show him how it felt, so I went behind Grady’s back too—literally. Right before I hit his goddamn throwing arm and made sure he was done with football, I was standing behind his back, quietly holding heavy metal. See?” Father’s eyes lit with glee as he mimicked the motion of his swing coming down to break my brother. “You don’t defy me, Alex. Understand?”
I couldn’t help it. I started to feel sick.
“I’ve been formulating this plan since you were still in fucking diapers, boy. Since I found out there was a fucking Wallace girl up at that damn farm. Why do you think they homeschooled her? They tried to hide her from me. This plan—it’s the best idea I’ve ever had, son, so don’t insult me by calling it anything other than great. You hear me?”
I nodded because I couldn’t not hear him. The whole planet could hear him. Everyone heard him going crazy. And everyone was terrified.
“This plan has made my fucking father and grandfather smile and sit up in their graves and applaud me, because I had a lot of crow pie to eat. I was taken in by a Wallace bitch myself, once. Oh she wasn’t a Wallace by name yet, but in her heart she was. She married one right after she tricked me. She mind-fucked me and manipulated me out of my inheritance to the point my father nearly left me dead in a Goddamned ditch for falling for her. But see…on his deathbed, I swore I’d figure out a way to get our pride back. And because of my plan—and because of you and your own little Wallace whore—we Sinclairs will win this feud. I want it to be done and over. You hear me, Alex? I want this feud to be done. And I want the Sinclairs to be the only names left standing.”